The bag of caffeine powder was ordered over the Internet and only cost around $5, the inquest was told. (Shutter Stock)

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The family of a 23-year-old British man killed by a colossal dose of caffeine say the sale of caffeine powder over the Internet should be banned. He died after swallowing two spoonfuls of the powder, equivalent to the caffeine in 70 cans of Red Bull, at a party, the Nottingham Post reports. He had either not seen or ignored a warning on the product not to take more than one-sixteenth of a spoonful.

The man became ill about 15 minutes after taking the powder, friends told a coroner's inquest. "He was puking up blood and he was sweating really bad," one friend said. The coroner, recording a verdict of accidental death, criticized the product's maker for not making warnings clearer. A Kentucky man recently attempted to use caffeine intoxication as a defense in his murder trial, click here for that story.

Caffeine is a stimulant drug found in coffee, cola, chocolate and other legal products, and is also present in many pharmaceutical products (eg. cold remedies). It is also one of the main substances used to 'cut' illicit drug powders like cocaine, heroin, speed and ecstasy. Yet our society acts like caffeine is not a drug. The chemical name of caffeine is trimethylxanthine, and it can cause drug dependence in regular users, i.e. craving, tolerance and withdrawals. It affects a neurotransmitter in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain called adenosine, which regulates attention and working memory (which is why caffeine helps you concentrate). The lethal dose for the average person is 10 grams in a period of one or two hours - about 65 to 100 times the standard effective dose of 100-150 mg. However, more susceptible people (eg. liver disease cases, children) could be killed by as little as 5 grams. One gram consumed in a short period (eg. 4 or 5 double-espressoes) is enough to bring on symptoms of caffeine poisoning (headaches, palpitations, nausea, etc.) in most people. Caffeine is a drug - more education is needed to make people aware of what constitutes safer versus risky caffeine consumption, so that potential harms to health can be minimized. The harm reduction approach to drug use is pragmatic and evidence-based, and applies as much to caffeine as it does to heroin and cocaine.